Victims of identity theft in cyber space with emphasis on the experience of USA’s criminal system

Identity theft in cyber space is a criminal phenomenon which has emerged vastly due to development of virtual space in different countries including Iran but because of significant legal and technical weaknesses in controlling this crime, it has brought many losses for the country. Identity theft in cyber space just like identity theft in physical space has many victims who are subject to variant losses, but the number of victims and forms and amount of losses differs between two kinds. But what are the losses caused by this crime and how should they be compensated? What is the role of the victims and what are the difficulties in identifying them? This research will try to define the victims and their subsequent direct and indirect losses using a descriptive method and it will discuss problems in identifying victims, different ways of compensation of losses and the role of victims and other involved parties in emergence of the crime which are going to be studied comparatively and analytically in this article based on the experience of United states of america’s criminal system.